Social Issues & Demographics

In a recent post on the Guardian’s Poverty Matters Blog, Ofra Koffman argued that “Many development organisations see empowering girls--and enabling them to delay childbearing--as a powerful means to tackle poverty, but the evidence so far doesn't bear this out.” She makes the observation that delayed childbearing--as evidenced by a country's adolescent fertility rate--does not correlate with each country's overall economic state.

It's more than a little ironic that the same Arizona Legislature that spearheaded a ruthless, racially charged campaign against illegal immigrants also banned K-12 ethnic studies classes on the grounds that they promote hatred and division. Who knew Arizona's Republican majority, as expert as it is at hyperbole and invective, was so committed to fostering healthy race relations in the Grand Canyon State?

Exactly one year ago, I was packing my suitcases to move from my childhood home in north Texas to a three-bedroom group house in Washington, D.C. My mother, standing close by to inspect my work, hooked the shoulder of a blue dress on her index finger and raised her eyebrows. “Don’t forget,” she said, “what happened to Monica,” drawing out the name for effect.

This is the premier episode of The Sidebar, the weekly podcast from the New America Foundation that looks at what's in and what's underlying the news. This week, host Pamela Chan talks with Tamar Jacoby, Katherine Zoepf and Dan Meredith about Syria, privacy and immigration.

For all the grim news about the economy and jobs over the last few years, one indicator of the quality of life in the United States has stubbornly continued to improve. The latest Federal Bureau of Investigation data suggests crime rates went on falling through the first half of 2011, recession be damned. In 1991, the overall national violent crime rate reported by the FBI was 758 cases per 100,000 inhabitants; by 2010, that had dropped to 404 per 100,000. The murder and "nonnegligent homicide" rate dropped by more than half over the same period.

Bestselling journalist Liza Mundy’s smart, deeply reported analysis of the most important cultural shift since the rise of feminism: the coming era in which women will earn more than men, and how this will change work, love, and sex.

A revolution is under way. Within a generation, more households will be supported by women than by men. In The Richer Sex, Liza Mundy shows how this reality will transform the sexual, dating, marriage, and work habits of men and women worldwide.

Irving Berlin wrote "White Christmas," one of the biggest-selling songs of all time, with tongue planted firmly in cheek. Although the wistful tune soothed homesick soldiers in such God-awful places as Guadalcanal more than half a century ago, and no doubt it still plays in Kandahar today, Berlin most likely wrote what he called "the best song that anybody's ever written" somewhere in the sunny Southwest, probably while sitting by a swanky hotel swimming pool.

Among Republican presidential candidates, it's been demagoguery as usual. Why have a substantive debate when you can exchange inflammatory sound bites instead, especially on immigration?

But something surprising happened last week far from the campaign trail — on Capitol Hill, of all places. Just when we thought Congress would never act to address the nation's broken immigration system, members of the House made a critical breakthrough, voting overwhelmingly to approve a fix that will make American companies more competitive and the immigration system fairer and more welcoming.

Last week, the Global Fund, the world's largest multilateral source of financing for the fight against AIDS, made a grim announcement: its donors had cut their funding by $1.6 billion, a big enough bite out of the organization's budget that the fund would be bankrolling no new AIDS treatment projects until 2014.

It's not a good sign when even the most obvious truths cannot be spoken on the campaign trail.

Deport 11 million illegal immigrants? Can Newt Gingrich really be the only Republican presidential candidate who understands that this would be impossible?

Not only would it cost tens of billions of dollars and divert resources from many far more pressing law enforcement priorities, but even the toughest of presidents would soon back off as the media images of mass round-ups beamed around the world—that really is not the kind of country most Americans want to be or live in.